Cheney Visits Iraq To Make Them an Offer They Can't Refuse

Excerpt NY Times report "Cheney on Unannounced Visit to Iraq":

Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced trip Monday to Baghdad, where he plans to push Iraqi political leaders toward opening the country’s vast oil fields to international companies, a senior Bush administration official said.

Mr. Cheney, who arrived in the Iraqi capital with his wife and daughter in the morning, is to meet with top officials including the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, and the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd.

No truth to the rumor that al-Maliki was heard screaming from behind closed doors as his fingers were crushed, I suppose. 

Perhaps the most contentious major legislation pending in Iraq covers how to divvy up the country’s vast petroleum wealth and develop its oil fields. But some Iraqi leaders fear that the proposals may allow American and western firms too much access to contracts for developing and exploiting Iraqi oil reserves.

In particular, politicians loyal to Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose political alliance could take control of several southern Shiite provinces in the next round of provincial elections, are concerned about what will happen to the country’s oil wealth.

“Exploiting and controlling the Iraqi oil fields have been part of the American scheme for more than four years,” said Hassan al-Rubaie, a member of parliament and senior member of Mr. Sadr’s political alliance. “Our presence in the parliament and among the Iraqi people will work with other national forces to stop this scheme.”

 There you have it, folks.  One of the most necessary decisions to be made in New Iraq totally blocked by distrust, not only of each other, but of the effect that the US troop presence has on the nation.

More evidence that when we leave Iraq could be more peaceful.

(The report at the link has been changed)

(I am not a go tomorrow person.  I'm not sure about how the Sunnis would fare under that kind of scenario. But any one -- especially a government official -- who is serious about getting out of Iraq would concentrate not only on arming the Sunnis but training them into a qualified army, so if our Shiite friends want to try to destroy them, they wouldn't find it easy.  We could call it Operation Esther.  

To its credit, the report mentions a similar scenario:

 ...thousands of former Sunni insurgents who used to carry out attacks on American and Iraqi forces are now being paid by the American military to serve in neighborhood militias. It’s not clear how many of the 91,000 men who are in the new militia forces are former insurgents, but American officers worry about what will happen if Iraqi leaders disband the militias without incorporating the militiamen into the government.

Still an army that is overwhelmingly Shiite could decide to eliminate the minority.  This is a problem bigger than my experience, but definitely also out of the reach of right wing trolls and officials who claim to be military intellectual giants and then spout the same tired talking points we've heard for a while now, in some cases for years.

But an early withdrawal from Iraq will definitely ease the feeling of coercion from the US to sell their oil cheaply to US companies, and that may break the logjam in the Iraqi government on legislation needed to help pacify the government.

tags: cheney  iraq  war  military  shia  sunnis  kurds  maliki  iraqi oil fields  

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